The Stark Raving Viking

Friday, August 31, 2007

Penalties for Judicial Misconduct aren't severe enough

If a prosecutor knowingly brings cases up for his or her ego, or to make the numbers, the prosecutor should face serving the bogus sentence he or she would have imposed on an innocent citizen.

Judge Finds Duke Prosecutor in Contempt

By AARON BEARD | Associated Press Writer

DURHAM, N.C. - The prosecutor who led the now-discredited rape case against three Duke University lacrosse players was held in criminal contempt of court Friday for lying to a judge when pursuing charges against the athletes.

Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III sentenced Mike Nifong to a day in jail. The former Durham County district attorney, who was already stripped of his law license and had resigned from office, had faced as many as 30 days.

"If what I impose with regard to Mr. Nifong would make things better or different for what's already happened, I don't know what it would be or how I could do it," Smith said.

Nifong showed no visible reaction when Smith handed down the sentence, and he left the courtroom with his wife, Cy Gurney.

Reading his decision from the bench minutes after the end of two days of testimony, Smith said Nifong "willfully made false statements" in September when he insisted he had given the defense all results from a critical DNA test.

Smith found that Nifong had provided the defense with a DNA testing report that he knew to be incomplete. The omitted data contained test results showing that DNA of multiple men, none of whom were lacrosse players, was on the accuser.

Smith said his decision was aimed at "protecting and preserving the integrity of the court and its processes." He said truthfulness is especially important when it comes to the rights of the accused to a fair trial.

When Nifong reports to jail at 9 a.m. next Friday, it will bring an end to the criminal case that began when a woman told police she was raped at a March 2006 party thrown by Duke's lacrosse team.

The team was initially vilified as Nifong -- in his first political campaign for district attorney -- told voters he wouldn't allow Durham to become known for "a bunch of lacrosse players from Duke raping a black girl."

Nifong went on to win indictments against three players -- Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans. But as the case against them progressed, it became clear Nifong's evidence was pitifully weak.

A state bar disciplinary committee later concluded Nifong manipulated the case to boost his chances at the ballot box, and he continued to pursue it even when it became clear the defendants were innocent.

State prosecutors eventually dropped all charges against the three men and declared them innocent victims of Nifong's "tragic rush to accuse."

Nifong recused himself after the state bar charged him with ethics violations, and he was disbarred in June for more than two dozen violations of the state's rules of professional conduct. He resigned a month later as district attorney.

Taking the stand in his own defense, Nifong insisted Friday he didn't intentionally lie about whether he had turned over the DNA evidence. But he acknowledged the report he gave defense attorneys was incomplete.

"I now understand that some things that I thought were in the report were in fact not in the report," Nifong said. "So the statements were not factually true to the extent that I said all the information had been provided."

A defense attorney found the omitted data amid 2,000 pages of documents Nifong gave the defense months after the initial report. Nifong said that by the time he realized the information wasn't in that report, "it had been corrected. The defendants already had it."

"It was never my intention to mislead this or any other court," Nifong said. "I certainly apologize to the court at this time for anything I might have said that was not correct."

Earlier Friday, the director of a private lab who prepared the DNA testing report said the omissions were a misunderstanding.

Brian Meehan said Nifong asked him to test DNA samples from lacrosse players to see whether any matched genetic material found on the accuser.

Although male DNA was found, no sample matched a lacrosse player. Results from the other unidentified men was referenced as "non-probative" material in the report given to defense attorneys, Meehan said.

Charles Davis, the attorney appointed to prosecute the contempt charge, asked Meehan whether Nifong's statement to the court -- that the report encompassed everything he had discussed with Meehan -- was true or false.

"It would be false because we don't include discussions in our reports," Meehan answered.

On Thursday, Meehan said he was the one who decided how to prepare the report stating no lacrosse player had been linked to the accuser. When Meehan was asked whether Nifong had asked him to leave anything out, Meehan answered, "No."

Defense attorney Jim Glover declined to comment after the hearing.

Finnerty's father, Kevin, said, "It's not a happy day for us, but we're thrilled the system works, that justice has happened, and we're moving on."

Joseph Cheshire, an attorney for Evans, said he felt sorry for Nifong's family, but not Nifong.

"I think what he did was willful and intentional and damaged seriously this state and the lives of these boys and their families," he said. "I don't feel sorry for Mike Nifong. Sorry if that sounds cruel, but I don't."

[click here] for my letter to Connecticut State Police Commissioner John A. Danaher III about Connecticut State Police Trooper perjury and Connecticut State Police misconduct. Will he cover it up and retaliate against complainers like all the rest? Are there still a Connecticut State Police dragnet for those on their secret "Enemies List"? [more]

I tell former Governor John G. Rowland to go F himself in a letter meant to arrive first on his bunk at Federal Prison. [more]. My letter to Bush [more]

I ask former Connecticut State Police Commissioner Arthur L. Spada if he ran a whorehouse or was a customer at one [click here]

A key legislative committee will hold a hearing on two of the most embarrassing issues facing the state police: a scathing internal affairs report on trooper misconduct and the controversial arrest of a political activist during the governor's inaugural parade.

State Police Commissioner Leonard Boyle will testify on both issues Jan. 23 before the General Assembly's Public Safety Committee. The hearing is open to the public, but testimony will be limited to those asked to appear.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal will discuss a 207-page report his office co-authored on the internal affairs unit, which detailed allegations of trooper drug use, sexual abuse, excessive force, family violence and association with prostitutes.

Four law-enforcement officials will talk about the arrest of Kenneth Krayeske, a political activist who was handcuffed during the Jan. 3 inaugural parade and charged with breach of peace and interfering with police.

Before the parade, Krayeske had been identified by state police as a possible threat to Gov. M. Jodi Rell. He had confronted her during last fall's election campaign at a Glastonbury parade and written critically about her recently on his website.

But Krayeske's supporters say he was simply taking photographs of Rell during the Hartford parade and did nothing that could be deemed a threat. His attorney, Norman Pattis, said Krayeske took at least 50 photographs during the public parade, including 16 of Rell as she walked along the route near Bushnell Park.

Pattis said he hoped to attend the hearing - which he described as a "show trial" - but is scheduled to be in court that day on another matter. A veteran trial attorney who is known as one of the state's best defense attorneys, Pattis remained confident about Krayeske's prospects.

"If this case goes to trial and I lose it, I will shave my head on the steps of the state Supreme Court," said Pattis, who for years has worn a long ponytail.

Krayeske has limited his comments on the advice of his attorney, and Pattis said that Krayeske "will not speak anywhere until he speaks to a jury."

One police official described the Krayeske arrest as "a train wreck."

As lawmakers have publicly criticized the arrest, some lawmakers have been jockeying behind the scenes over which committee would hold hearings.

Some pushed for the judiciary or the government administration and elections committee to conduct the inquiry because they are deemed among the most aggressive in the legislature. The public safety committee finally was chosen because it retains jurisdiction over law-enforcement issues.

The hearing will be conducted by state Sen. Andrea Stillman, D-Waterford, and state Rep. Stephen Dargan, D-West Haven, the committee's co-chairs.

"If something happened to the governor, there would have been criticism that law enforcement didn't do enough to protect the governor," Dargan said Friday night. "It's like a Monday morning quarterback. We want to make sure that law enforcement is not handcuffed in the job they're supposed to do."

* * * *

COMMENTARYThe Long Arm Of The List

Targeting People Who May Be Politically Disruptive Strikes At Heart Of Political Freedom

"What have I done?" you ask. The officer explains that you ran a stop sign several blocks back. You never saw the sign, but no matter. It will be a small fine and off you will go. Everyone makes simple mistakes from time to time.

The officer takes your license and registration to his car. He enters your name into a database linked to his car by computer. A message flashes across his screen:

WARNING - APPROACH WITH CAUTION

THIS INDIVIDUAL IS ASSOCIATED WITH TERRORISM ...

USE CAUTION AND IMMEDIATELY CONTACT THE TERRORIST SCREENING CENTER AT (866) 872-9001 FOR ADDITIONAL DIRECTION.

Your plans for the evening have changed. You are now on a federal radar, listed and tagged as a potential threat. Your name is part of the FBI's Violent Gang and Terrorist Organization File (VGTOF). Will you go home, or to a jail cell?

How did your name get on the list? You don't know. You may never know. Perhaps you were seen at an antiwar rally. Or perhaps you contributed money to a candidate or cause that some anonymous soul views as suspect. Like it or not, however, every law enforcement officer in the country now need only log onto his computer to learn that you are a suspect.

We saw how innocent acts become crimes at the inaugural parade for Gov. M. Jodi Rell this month. Ken Krayeske, a free-lance journalist, law student and former campaign director for Green Party gubernatorial candidate Cliff Thornton, was arrested there and charged with breach of peace and interfering with a police officer. Why? He was taking pictures of the parade.

Of course, that is no crime. But before the parade began, Hartford police officers were told by the Connecticut Intelligence Center and the Connecticut State Police Central Intelligence Unit that a number of political activists posed a threat to the governor.

These intelligence groups are part of the new state-federal security network that is sharing information about all manner of things that can go bump in the night. The state police had photographs of the activists listed as threats. Krayeske's picture was among them.

Ken Krayeske was not arrested for taking pictures. He was arrested because he was on a list of potential threats. His innocent conduct took on a sinister cast when viewed through the secret lens of suspicion.

The state police deny maintaining any such lists. I suspect the denials are a mere linguistic trick. The state may not maintain a list. The lists of who is naughty and who is nice are most likely in federal hands. State lawmakers can hold all the hearings they want in Hartford to find out about these lists and they will learn almost nothing. State law enforcement officials are merely participating in federally managed and funded programs designed, we are told, to protect the security of this, our blessed homeland.

When state lawmakers try to subpoena federal officials, those subpoenas will be quashed in the name of national security or some other legal devicethat makes the federal government a distant, and sacrosanct, overlord.

VGTOF, for example, was created in 1995 in response to the Oklahoma City bombing. It is managed by the FBI. The list initially was focused on individuals believed to be members of groups posing a threat to the United States. But in recent years, the list has expanded. Not long ago, mere protesters against the war in Iraq were placed on the list. A federal audit of VGTOF in 2005 found an error rate of 40 percent based on a small sample of records. Are you on the VGTOF list?

These lists are dangerous and easily misused. Was Ken Krayeske arrested because he had threatened to attend the gubernatorial ball and protest? Or because he once questioned why Gov. Rell refused to demand that gubernatorial debates be open to all candidates?

I did not pledge allegiance to a national-security state. We proclaim in the federal Constitution's preamble that "we the people" created government for limited ends, to assure our life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

"Live free or die," read license plates in New Hampshire. These are words to live by. When did we yield the freedom to be let alone to bureaucrats who decide without meaningful review who is and is not a threat? More important, who regulates the men and women sitting up nights deciding who among us to include on lists that can transform innocent conduct into crimes?

Norman A. Pattis is a criminal defense and civil rights lawyer in Bethany. He represents Ken Krayeske in criminal charges arising from the arrest at the inaugural parade.

Murry the Wheel, solo in Fairfield County, Connecticut

What is the Plan?

Bush allegedly placed Iran's armed forces on his "Terrorist" list. What could Bush be planning? Is this the first time a nation's armed forces have been placed on a US terrorist list?[click here for video] with more information.

Is Connecticut a George W. Bush style whorehouse? [click here] for more

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Justice and Political Influence is For Sale

Do Connecticut Police hire hit men to kill those that make police misconduct complaints? [click here] for video and more

Should Connecticut have a bridge dedicated to Blowjobs and Drunk Driving? Should Neil R. Esposito have a bridge on Rt. 91 in Connecticut named for him?

A blowjob, car crash, politically powerful man dead, and alleged police/court tampering, skewed investigations, and harassment allegedly orchestrated out of a governor's office.Did Col. Lynch of the Connecticut State Police illegally have a State Police Investigation results changed so that powerful Neil R. Esposito relatives got Neil's millions, not Heather for her pain and suffering? If so, why haven't Lynch and other police officers been arrested? The Connecticut State Police retaliate against citizens that lodge police misconduct complaints with their secret enemies list [more, click here] ...

Helen Ubinas, Hartford Courant (ctnow.com)

Muddied Esposito Case Victimizes All InvolvedApril 29, 2004

And so it ended the way it began, with talk of sex and influence-peddling.

Five weeks of testimony, dueling scientists and the manslaughter case against Heather Specyalski rested on the same two questions that prompted the case: Was she performing oral sex on Neil Esposito at the time of the crash that killed him? And how much influence did the wealthy and connected Esposito family have in reopening the investigation?

All that time and money - a good $100,000 for expert testimony on each side. All those witnesses - about 60. All those pictures and graphics - so many that defense exhibits were labeled with quintuple letters.

And of course, the dramatic unveiling of the obliterated Mercedes.And in the end, neither the steamy sex-and-subornation defense nor the cold, conflicting facts have gotten us any closer to knowing what happened the night Specyalski and Esposito drove away from a Middletown restaurant five years ago.

Was Specyalski driving the night Esposito died? Or was it Esposito himself? Is the family trying to protect a family fortune from a manipulating gold-digger? Or is an innocent woman going to be railroaded, a victim of their money or power?

It's doubtful anyone will know for sure. Paid experts delivered testimony for their employers. State police investigators reached conflicting conclusions. A governor's office with ethical problems of its own muddied the situation even more.

What should we conclude from the assignment of a state police veteran to remedial training after a well-connected family objects to his findings? Was it because he screwed up the case, or because he came back with the wrong conclusion? "Because it didn't please the Esposito family," said Specyalski's defense attorney, Jeremiah Donovan.

Sex and conspiracy. Prosecutor Maureen Platt dismissed both as diversionary tactics. When you don't have a case, she said, what better way than to appeal to the basest instincts.

Should we pity Poor Heather Specyalski? she asked. What's so poor about a woman who is suing the Esposito estate for $20 million.

The Espositos, she contended, were victims of their own money and power. So what they made calls? So what Gov. John Rowland's confidante responded? Should they be punished for being wealthy? For being connected? For knowing how to get things done?

"I'm not saying people who have money have more rights," she said. But should they have fewer?

If it had been a poor family who had gotten that far, she said, wouldn't we all have applauded?

Well, of course we would. More than that: For a poor family without connections to get that much official intercession would have been a miracle worthy of papal acknowledgement.

About the only thing that is clear after weeks of testimony is that everyone involved is a victim. Neil Esposito lost his life. His children lost a father. Even his parents, who in their own way were trying to protect the reputation of their son, wound up tarnishing his name irreparably.

And of course there's Specyalski, whose life has already been changed forever by the injuries she suffered in the accident, now facing 25 years in prison.

The jury starts deliberations today. Specyalski has already had a talk with her son about the possibility that she might go away for a long time. She said Neil was a good man, and that this was an accident.

* * * ** * * *

Excerpt:Text of Letter and Fax:

November 30, 2006Subject: Possible Connecticut Governor Rell election fraud and other racketeering and obstruction of justice crimes going on in Connecticut[click here] for more

MIDDLETOWN -- The sex act defense that put Heather Specyalski's manslaughter trial in the national spotlight hardly surfaced during 19 days of testimony from 60 witnesses with more than 400 court exhibits.

But during final arguments Wednesday - the last day before jurors would begin deliberating Specyalski's conviction or acquittal in the death of her former boyfriend, Neil Esposito - the unusual defense was the center of attention.

Prosecutor Maureen Platt spent most of her rebuttal discounting the suggestion that Specyalski was performing oral sex on Esposito at the time of the automobile crash that killed him and permanently injured her.

"That comes in now and all of a sudden we're supposed to believe that?" Platt asked jurors.

Specyalski's attorney Jeremiah Donovan listed "sex" as one of 10 things he wanted to discuss with the jury when outlining his closing arguments.

The six jurors are considering three charges against Specyalski - second-degree manslaughter, second-degree manslaughter with a motor vehicle and misconduct with a motor vehicle. If they convict her of all three charges, she could face up to 25 years in prison.

Specyalski and Esposito were in the "process of reconciling" the day of the accident, Donovan said. They danced closely, kissed and held hands at the Halloween party they attended before the crash.

Then, the Mercedes-Benz they were traveling in on their way to Esposito's Rocky Hill home swerved off the road - for an unknown reason, Donovan said.

"If they had been engaged in this [sex act], we don't know," Donovan said. "But it gives rise to reasonable doubt."

Paramedics at the crash scene testified seeing Esposito's pants pulled down between his knees and ankles. Neither his pants nor his underwear were torn and the zipper was pulled down.

"There are only two people who can tell us if this happened," Donovan said. "Heather can't remember and Neil can't tell us."

Donovan conceded that none of the experts who reconstructed the crash explained their theories with Specyalski's head in Esposito's lap, but the lawyer said she may have been pushed upright in her seat as the speeding car went into a yaw before crashing. Both Esposito and Specyalski had been drinking.

Scott D. Batterman, one of the state's expert witnesses, testified that if Specyalski had been performing oral sex on Esposito, her head and neck would have been pinned in the car. Paramedics found Specyalski on her back, her torso was sticking outside of the broken driver's side window. Her legs were inside the car.

"Don't you think her head would have been in the dirt instead of being sunny-side up looking at the sky?" Platt asked jurors in her rebuttal. She also mentioned photos of Esposito at the crash scene that showed his shirt ripped off his body.

"Was ripping his shirt part of the sex act as well?" Platt asked.

Before the trial began, Platt filed a motion asking Judge Robert L. Holzberg to bar testimony about the sex act without "a good-faith basis for such inquiry." Holzberg allowed the defense, saying a defendant has a right to offer a defense "no matter how outlandish, silly or unbelievable one might think it will be."

News reports about the defense provoked national tittering with Specyalski's case a subject on raunchy radio host Howard Stern's show. Political commentator Rush Limbaugh dubbed it a "Lewinsky defense."

Platt attacked the sex-act theory and defense claims that the politically connected Esposito family used its influence to have the governor's office push for a re-investigation of the crash. She called it "fire setting" by Donovan - an effort to focus jurors on lurid allegations instead of evidence presented in the case.

State police initially ruled that Esposito was driving when his leased Mercedes went out of control on Route 9 in Cromwell and crashed on Oct. 30, 1999. They closed the case.

But Jo McKenzie, Gov. John G. Rowland's longtime aide and political confidant, testified that she personally contacted then-Public Safety Commissioner Henry C. Lee about reopening the case after a member of the Esposito family called her for help. After Esposito's father, Raymond Esposito, wrote a letter to Lee citing inconsistencies in the first investigation, Specyalski was identified as the driver and arrested in November 2000.

Platt pointed out a statement Specyalski's brother gave to a state trooper in which he said, "The driver of the vehicle was my sister, Heather Specyalski." She pointed to injuries Specyalski suffered on her left side as proof that Specyalski was driving. She said Specyalski's left leg was trapped between the steering wheel and a large dent in the driver's side door that was caused when the car hit a concrete block after leaving the road.

Holding up a poster-sized photo of the wrecked Mercedes and pointing to the mangled driver's side, Platt asked jurors: "If I asked a child, `Who do you think had the most injuries?' What do you think they'd say?"

Donovan criticized the left-side injury theory, a fundamental premise Platt has stuck to throughout the trial. He pointed to a gash in Specyalski's left thigh that Dennis Shanahan, a California-based injury expert, said was caused when the gear shift in the car's center console dug into her thigh as her body left the car's passenger seat.

Donovan said there is reasonable doubt simply because of the way the investigation was conducted and the fact that so many experts disagree about who was driving.

He also reiterated an image he has tried to put in jurors' minds throughout the trial: "There is no way on earth [Esposito] flew out that driver's side window past Heather Specyalski."

The prosecution has asserted that Esposito was thrown out the driver's side window in the crash while Specyalski remained behind the wheel.

Holzberg instructed jurors to judge each witness' credibility, including witnesses who may have received payment for testifying for either the prosecution or the defense. A number of expert witnesses received money from lawyers involved in civil lawsuits that have been filed in connection with the crash.

Holzberg singled out former Associate State Medical Examiner Arkady Katsnelson, who testified under oath that he accepted $300 to provide advice to Esposito's family for their civil lawsuit against Specyalski. Katsnelson was suspended the day after his testimony and has since retired from state service.

A Judge with Morals, a Target of a Corrupt State Police

Ex-Chief Justice Speziale Dies

Excerpts: Reilly’s exoneration touched off nearly a decade of bitter recrimination between members of the judiciary and senior figures in the Connecticut state police. Police persisted in asserting, despite contradictory evidence, that Reilly, then a skinny 18-year-old, slashed his mother’s throat and ran her over with a car at their home in Canaan in 1973. The case gave rise to two books and a television movie.

The grand juror’s report amounted to a scathing indictment of the state police investigation of Gibbons’ murder.

Detectives were accused of ignoring evidence that pointed away from Reilly.

Have Morals, get transferred out

Superior Court Judge Carmen L. Lopez

Excerpt: Lopez’s supporters are wondering why a veteran child-protection judge hailed nationally for her ability to combine legal expertise with her professional interest in juvenile justice is no longer handling the state’s most serious family cases. Story

Those within the judicial and law enforcement system risk losing their jobs or being transferred out for exposing corruption, streamlining, and actually acting in the public�s best interest, not selfish interests and for revenue collection.

Citizens speaking out about corruption, poor policies, rogue officials, and being screwed over by law enforcement and/or in the courts face harassment, arrests, prison, and/or other retaliation.

I assume the rest of the country operates similar to the way Connecticut does, but hasn�t gone down as far a path of self-destruction and sleaze.

Both the Judiciary and Law Enforcement top brass are notified of any proposed legislation regarding law enforcement and the courts through liaisons, and these liaisons let elected officials know whether or not they have permission to legislate regarding the police or the courts. What!!!???

So, who is really in charge, and does it even resemble the ideals of a Democratic Republic?-Steven G. Erickson aka Vikingas

VINCENT DEROSA, longtime friend and driver of then-Gov. John G. Rowland, reportedly described to federal investigators the influencing of state contracts from the governors� office � and from a Vermont ski house � in return for cash, gifts and other favors. Rowland and DeRosa, right, are shown arriving for the 1998 funeral of a Connecticut State Lottery shooting victim.(TONY BACEWICZ)

August 16, 2003

Is Rape not Rape if Committed by a Police Officer?

Abolish Police Unions Nationwide and promote Civilian Oversight of Police with quality control questionnaires should go out to those requiring police service and that call in.

In the early 70's, Serpico, played by Al Pacino in the movie, shows us that police should not police themselves. Serpico could not find a single officer nor NYC police official that was either willing to take his corruption complaint, not taking bribes, didn't care, or was not part of the corruption.

Connecticut Police officers have been accused of rape, shaking down prostitutes for cash and sex, harassing citizens, shooting unarmed citizens, harassment, acting as 'Armed Revenue Collectors' for towns and the State, pulling over motorists based on race, etc.

ELLINGTON - State police have finished their investigation of Michael Nieliwocki, the town constable accused by a Glastonbury woman of sexually assaulting her in February 2002, and recommend that Ellington discipline Nieliwocki.

Abolish Police Unions Nationwide and promote 'Civilian Oversight of Police' with quality control questionnaires should go out to those requiring police service and that call in.

The early 70's, Serpico, played by Al Pacino in the movie, shows us that police should not police themselves. Serpico could not find a single officer nor NYC police official that was either willing to take his corruption complaint, not taking bribes, didn't care, or was not part of the corruption.

Connecticut Police officers have been accused of rape, shaking down prostitutes for cash and sex, harassing citizens, shooting unarmed citizens, harassment, acting as 'Armed Revenue Collectors' for towns and the State, pulling over motorists based on race, etc.

Are Connecticut State Police and Connecticut Police Officers immune from prosecution for a White Officer raping of age, underage women, and for other crimes and police misconduct?

ELLINGTON - State police have finished their investigation of Michael Nieliwocki, the town constable accused by a Glastonbury woman of sexually assaulting her in February 2002, and recommend that Ellington discipline Nieliwocki.

Town labor lawyer Anthony J. Palermino said Wednesday the discipline recommended could range "from suspension to discharge." Palermino said it is up to the town whether Nieliwocki will be disciplined at all, and if so what form that discipline will take, because Nieliwocki is a town employee.

The months-long state police internal affairs investigation found no reason to prosecute Nieliwocki, Palermino said. "They found no reason for an arrest or a prosecution on the claim of sexual assault ... there wasn't enough evidence," he said. "But the internal affairs investigation feels there is still cause for some form of discipline." "Had there been an arrest or something, there might have been some action taken," Palermino added.Nieliwocki was put on administrative duty last fall pending the results of the investigation.

Ellington officials have been waiting for the investigation results before taking any further action. First Selectman Michael Stupinski is still reviewing the report.

Birthday party gone wrong According to a lengthy Vernon police report, on the night of Friday, Feb. 8, 2002, the woman was celebrating her sister's 21st birthday at Cioppino's Restaurant and Pub on Route 83 in Ellington.

Nieliwocki responded to a call that a fight had broken out at Cioppino's and found the drunken woman fighting with her sister outside, the report states.

Nieliwocki, who was 38 at the time, drove the 23-year-old woman to a Vernon hotel. "She stated that she cannot remember what happened with the police, but remembers that all she wanted to do was to go home with" her sister, Vernon Detective Michael E. Greenier wrote.

But police "would not let them leave together because they were fighting," the report continues. "She said that a police officer named Michael told her that she could not drive home and she could not go home with" her sister. "So she had to go to a motel."According to the report, Nieliwocki drove the woman to the Holiday Inn Express on Kelly Road in Vernon, where he helped her check in, left, and later returned in his private vehicle after he was off duty at 3 a.m. on the morning of Saturday, Feb. 9.

He was still wearing his uniform, however.

A hotel clerk saw the two together and said the woman spoke loudly and slurred her words. Later that night, the clerk said he walked by the room and heard what sounded like consensual sexual activity, the report says.Another trooper who responded to the fight at the bar told Vernon police that Nieliwocki was in the parking lot with the woman and "at the time he told his trainee that the way Nieliwocki was allowing her to get so close to him was totally unsafe," the report says.

According to the report, the woman woke up in the hotel room Feb. 9 wearing only socks.

She went to Rockville General Hospital on Feb. 9 with bruises on her legs.

Around 10 p.m. that night, a hospital nurse called Vernon police on behalf of the woman to make a sexual assault complaint.

The woman told police she had been "really drunk and stoned" the night before. Later, she cooperated with Vernon police, making phone calls to Nieliwocki while police listened.

Invited in?

Nieliwocki later told police the woman had invited him to her hotel room, and that he went there after the end of his shift. He said they did not have intercourse but that they did engage in sexual activity.

"This is a problem, I know it was consensual ... This is every man's nightmare. You have sex and then someone says it was rape," Nieliwocki told Greenier, according to the report.

Nieliwocki told police he could not tell whether the woman was intoxicated. "He stated that he could not tell if a person was intoxicated without running them through tests first."I then questioned that if he [is a] trained police officer, and he could not tell if she was intoxicated, then perhaps he could explain to me why the desk clerk felt that she was.

"He stated that not everyone could tell when a person was intoxicated," Greenier wrote.An 11-month investigation by the Vernon Police Department and the chief state's attorney's office found insufficient evidence to criminally charge Nieliwocki.State police conducted their own internal investigation of Nieliwocki because, although he is a town employee, as a constable he reports to the town's resident state trooper.

Though state police had said the findings of the internal investigator were expected in February, it was not until last month that the report was released to the town.On June 25, state police spokesman Sgt. J. Paul Vance said the reason for the delay was that this is a "very involved report" that had to be "scrutinized" by several people.

The woman's lawyer, William H. Paetzold of Glastonbury, could not be reached for comment today.Paetzold said in January that his client intended to file a federal lawsuit against Nieliwocki and the town.

P.S. Enfield, Connecticut, Police were sent to doors collecting overdue library fines. This just goes to show us it is about the cash not about the criminals.

-Steven G. Erickson

Posted by Vikingas at August 16, 2003 06:12 AM

Comments

Arthur L. Spada head of DPS, Connecticut State Police demoted the highest ranking woman in the State Police allegedly because she was a woman. There also have been accusations of bias against minorities lodged against CT departments.

From the Hartford Courant, September 27, 2003:

Police Officer Wins SettlementHartford To Pay More Than $200,000 In Compensation

September 27, 2003By TINA A. BROWN, Courant Staff Writer

The city must pay a Hartford police officer more than $200,000 in back wages and other compensation because it failed to reinstate him when a larceny charge was dismissed eight years ago.

The settlement was accepted Friday in Hartford Superior Court by Judge Thomas Corrigan. The city did not acknowledge wrongdoing but agreed that Juan A. Morales would receive $206,874 in back pay, $20,874 for sick days and $34,995 in pension benefits, and an undisclosed amount for attorney fees, the court document shows. After taxes and a pension deferral, the payment totals $225,000.

Additionally, Morales was reinstated on paper to his position as a patrol officer. He then resigned effective January 2004. Over the next five months, Morales is expected to continue accruing time toward his pension. In addition to the lump sum, the city will pay Morales more than $1,000 a week until his retirement becomes official, the agreement says.

The settlement reached Friday marks the fourth time in recent years the city has paid back wages to a Hartford police officer accused of on-duty corruption.

Morales, Joseph Smith, now known as Joseph Davis, and Matthew Rivera, all were accused of stealing city time after a grand jury, following an 18-month investigation, accused them of hanging out at the Charter Oak Package store during their shifts. The charges were later dismissed. Rivera and Smith returned to work after they obtained lump sum payments from the city.

Also, the city was ordered to pay another officer, Eric Smith, more than $120,000 in July after that officer was cleared of sexual assault allegations. His arrest did not stem from the grand jury's findings.

Morales was a 12-year police veteran when he was arrested and accused of loafing in July 1995. He tried unsuccessfully over the past eight years to get his job back. He sued the city in 2001 seeking back wages, pension benefits and attorney fees. Georgetti said Morales was forced to sue the city because he could not obtain a hearing. He said Morales might have gone back to work as a patrol officer if the city had given him a hearing.

The city attorneys declined to comment for this story.

Gates Landry, police union president, said, "It's a reasonable settlement. All parties are in agreement. Hopefully this ends an unhappy chapter in the police department and we can all move on with our lives."

From the Fixed Loop blog:

On Saturday, July 14, a Department of Homeland Security Helicopter hovered over the home of Ed and Elaine Brown for over four hours, skimming the tree tops and beeping its on-board siren at a crowd of over 200 people who had assembled there to enjoy a barbecue picnic and concert with the Browns.

The Fort Fairfield Journal has received a copy of a letter from the Department of Homeland Security to Senator Collins regarding the incident.

The letter states the helicopter was a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) aircraft, whose agents were operating in support of U.S. Marshall Service and Internal Revenue Service agents in an ongoing investigation of Ed and Elaine Brown.

“Ed and Elaine Brown are convicted felons under federal tax statutes,” wrote Luke P. Bellocchi, Assistant Commissioner, Office of Congressional Affairs with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. “Since their conviction, the Browns have resisted federal arrest warrants by securing themselves in a compound and refusing to surrender themselves to federal law enforcement officials.”

There is currently no law in the United States requiring the filing of an income tax form, or payment of the taxes. Since there is no law, the Browns are guilty of nothing and the Federal Court ruling and arrest warrant are therefore bogus. Tax researcher, Tommy Cryer recently won a court case against the I.R.S. where I.R.S. agents and attorneys for the United States were unable to prove to a jury there is any law requiring the filing or payment of income tax in the United States.

Contrary to Bellocchi’s opinion that the Browns are secured in a “compound,” this writer has visited their home and found it to be a well-kept home in a secluded, upper class part of town. The use of the word “compound” to describe what is otherwise a couple’s home is likely a psychological warfare term designed to portray a negative image on otherwise peaceful, God-fearing Americans who simply want their government to be held accountable when enforcing laws that simply don’t exist.

While the Browns and their guests were enjoying each other’s company in the midst of a picnic and concert, the helicopter continuously skimmed the crowd and hovered over the treetops in an apparent harassment and intimidation exercise. Bellocchi defends those actions by writing, “The operation involving the aircraft was necessary to further apprehension of the Browns and to secure officer safety in that effort. No violations of agency policy or regulations occurred during the mission.”

Due to operational security and officer safety, Bellocchi was unable to release the names of the pilots or agents involved in that ongoing operation.

Bellocchi admits that intelligence data reveals that "the Brown compound contains significant passive and active traps and devices designed to thwart apprehension. Surveillance and video footage provided by the CBP aircraft was necessary to the law enforcement efforts of both the I.R.S. and U.S. Marshals in the performance of their duties."

The Browns continue to resist the illegal arrest warrant on the fraudulent Failure to File court ruling, issued in the Spring of this year. A third “Live Free or Die” concert is scheduled at their home on September 15. Go to www.makethestand.com or www.thepowerhour.com for more information.

Culture of Corruption, Both Parties

Presidential contender Mike Huckabee says his party took a beating in the 2006 election because too many of its candidates didn't act like Republicans.

"We didn't fight corruption like we should, we didn't curtail spending, we didn't resolve problems," the former Arkansas governor told reporters Friday before a speech to the Midwest Leadership Conference.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney touted his views on health care in a dinner speech Friday night, continuing a theme he had begun earlier in the day while campaigning in Florida.

Except for actor and former Sen. Fred Thompson, who was scheduled as the keynote speaker Saturday night, others in the crowded GOP field were skipping the event.

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Does the US have a Bigger Brother than China?

China's 'Big Brother surveillance' to dwarf UK

China has launched an ambitious "Big Brother" surveillance programme using everything from closed circuit television systems that can recognise faces to identity card computer chips to monitor its population.

Shenzhen is the richest, most developed city in China

A high-tech security company has been awarded a contract for the first phase of a scheme to encode computer chips for the residence permits all Chinese citizens must carry, starting in the southern city of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong.

The government will use the chips to control the whereabouts of its hundreds of millions of migrant workers. But they will also store data on the number of their children under the one-child policy, education records and ultimately medical and credit histories.

The company is already setting up television systems throughout the city armed with "intelligent surveillance" software that can recognise faces.

Police hope eventually to combine the two systems to provide complete surveillance.

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Shenzhen is being used as a testing ground for part of an all-encompassing security system known as the Golden Shield Project. This also includes computer and mobile phone monitoring through the so-called "Great Firewall" of internet censorship.

Shenzhen is the most developed city in China, having been turned from a village 30 years ago into a pioneer of the country's "special economic development zones".

It now has a population of more than 12 million - almost twice as many as Hong Kong, on whose border it lies and which it was set up to imitate.

Per head it is the richest city in China but it suffers from widespread crime and prostitution. Virtually all its population has migrated from elsewhere, a major social issue in China, where residence permits assigned at birth dictate where you can live.

The closed circuit television system and residence card chips will be provided by China Public Security Technology, run by Chinese entrepreneurs but registered in Florida.

More than 20,000 new cameras will be installed, according to the New York Times. They will be integrated with 180,000 already set up.

Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, was the first to test the new system when he passed through immigration at the Shenzhen port on his return from a visit to Hong Kong.

But the extent of Golden Shield has alarmed human rights groups, who say it extends control over all aspects of people's lives to authorities subject to little or no accountability.

Some of the data the authorities intend to retain on the new identity cards includes the owner's police record; employment history; landlord's telephone number; educational record; medical insurance status and ethnicity.

While Britain is known around the world for its surveillance culture due to the soaring numbers of CCTV cameras, human rights activists said the scale and sophistication of the Shenzhen project dwarfed the UK.

"I don't think they are remotely comparable, and even in Britain it is quite controversial," said Dinah PoKempner of Human Rights Watch.

The US has announced that it is to expand the use of spy satellites for domestic surveillance, turning its "eyes in sky" inward to combat terrorism and eventually for law enforcement.

* * * ** * * *

A US Memorial on State Property to Cop Killers and Terrorists

Terrorist Style Connecticut State Police Officers ran me out of these properties for not wanting heroin and crack cocaine sold near or off them:

Ritt Goldstein proposes Civilian Oversight of Police at a special Connecticut legislative hearing and flees to Sweden seeking Political Asylum soon after:

A Police Officer's US Marine son returns home to witness police misconduct at a McDonald's and then the Marine and his brother are pulled out of their parents house in the middle of the night and severely beaten at the police station:

A traffic sign can be charged with disturbing the peace

Busted Party Hosts Forced To Pay Officers

POSTED: 8:22 am PDT August 17, 2007

UPDATED: 8:42 am PDT August 17, 2007

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Flagstaff police issued a reminder to residents that party hosts busted for disturbing the peace are responsible for covering the cost of a police response.Police said they receive calls from neighbors reporting loud parties where offenses such as underage drinking, assaults, public urination and criminal damage are taking place. Officers dispatched to the scene to break up the party may issue arrests or citations.Under a city ordinance, the party host is not only arrested and booked into jail, but is also charged with the cost of the responding officers' salaries for the time spent breaking up the party. Depending on the size of the disturbance, police said, breaking up the party could require several officers and a supervisor.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Wife who killed preacher set free

(CNN) -- After spending a total of seven months in custody, the Tennessee woman who fatally shot her preacher husband in the back was released on Tuesday, her lawyer told CNN.

Holding baby Breanna, Mary Winkler stands next to Matthew. In the foreground are Mary Alice and Patricia.

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Mary Winkler, a 33-year-old mother of three girls, was freed from a Tennessee mental health facility where she was treated for depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, lawyer Steve Farese said.

"She is out," Farese said.

Farese said his client will not talk to the news media because she continues to wage a legal battle to win custody of her girls and faces a $2 million civil suit filed by the parents of her slain husband, Matthew Winkler.

Except for her oldest daughter's brief testimony at her trial, Winkler hasn't seen her children in a year, the lawyer said.

Winkler will return to work at the dry cleaners in McMinnville, Tennessee, where she worked before the trial, Farese said. She is living with friends.

Winkler served about five months in county jail as she awaited trial, then spent two months undergoing therapy at the mental health facility following her conviction for voluntary manslaughter.

Winkler never denied shooting her husband, Matthew, the popular new preacher at the Fourth Street Church of Christ in Selmer, a town of 4,500 people about 80 miles east of Memphis.

Don't Miss

On March 22, 2006, church elders found his body -- with a shotgun wound to the back -- in the bedroom of the parsonage after he failed to show up for an evening service. His wife was arrested the next day with the couple's three young daughters in Orange Beach, Alabama, on the Gulf coast.

Mary Winkler was charged with murder, which could have sent her to prison for up to 60 years, but a jury found her guilty of voluntary manslaughter following an emotional trial in which she testified about suffering years of verbal and physical abuse.

In a statement to police after her arrest, Winkler said she didn't recall pulling the trigger .She said she apologized and wiped the blood that bubbled from her dying husband's lips as he asked, "Why?"

Prosecutors and Matthew Winkler's family members said he was a good husband and father.

But on the stand, Mary Winkler described a hellish 10-year marriage during which, she said, her husband struck her, screamed at her, criticized her and blamed her when things went wrong. She said he made her watch pornography and wear "slutty" costumes for sex, and that he forced her to submit to sex acts that made her uncomfortable.

She testified she pointed the shotgun at her husband during an argument to force him to talk through their problems, and "something went off."

A defense psychologist testified that she was depressed and showed classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.

Mary Winkler initially received a three-year sentence in June. But Circuit Court Judge J. Weber McCraw required that she serve only 210 days, and allowed her to serve the rest of the time on probation.

She also received credit for five months she spent behind bars awaiting trial, which left only about 60 days to her sentence. McCraw ruled she could serve the time in a mental health facility.

Since Mary Winkler's arrest, the couple's three children have been cared for by Matthew Winkler's parents, who have filed court papers seeking to terminate her parental rights.E-mail to a friend

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Official Retaliation

Police have secret operatives that infiltrate groups of those that protest police brutality and misconduct. The Connecticut State Police operate as Secret Police and go after those on their secret "Enemies List". [click here] for more

Big Oil and British and US Black Hats did it before for Monopoly Oil Inc.

Soldiers surround the Parliament building in Tehran on August 19, 1953.British Petroleum didn't want the Iranian oil fields under the control and ownernship of Iranians.

Excerpt:n 1951 Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq received the vote required from the parliament to nationalize the British-owned oil industry, in a situation known as the Abadan Crisis. Despite British pressure, including an economic blockade, the nationalization continued. Mossadegh was briefly removed from power in 1952 but was quickly re-appointed by the shah, due to an overwhelming majority in parliament supporting him, and he, in turn, forced the Shah into a brief exile in August 1953. A military coup headed by his former minister of the Interior and retired army general Fazlollah Zahedi, with the active support of the intelligence services of the British (MI6) and US (CIA) governments - including mass propaganda leaflet dropping (slogans such as; "Up with Communism, Down with Ala" and "Down with Islam, up with Communism" – designed specifically to turn the population against Mossadegh, as well as the agents of CIA and MI6 (dressed as Mossadegh supporters) spurting machine guns into crowds (known as Operation Ajax), forced Mossadegh from office on August 19. Mossadegh was arrested and tried for treason by an un-official military tribunal, (Mossadegh was imprisoned and his officials decapitated in public) while Zahedi succeeded him as prime minister, and turned the country into a Police State with Martial Law.

In return for the US support the Shah agreed, in 1954, to allow an international consortium of British (40% of shares), American (40%), French (6%), and Dutch (14%) companies to run the Iranian oil facilities for the next 25 years. The international consortium agreed to a fifty-fifty split of profits with Iran but would not allow Iran to audit their accounts to confirm the consortium was reporting profits properly, nor would they allow Iran to have members on their board of directors. There was a return to stability in the late 1950s and the 1960s. In 1957 martial law was ended after 16 years and Iran became closer to the West, joining the Baghdad Pact and receiving military and economic aid from the US. The Iranian government began a broad program of reforms to modernize the country, notably changing the quasi-feudal land system.

Bush Co. Push for World Domination?

At a press conference on Thursday, President Bush delivered an apparent threat against Iran, stating, "One of the main reasons that I asked Ambassador Crocker to meet with Iranians inside Iraq was to send the message that there will be consequences for people transporting, delivering EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs, that kill Americans in Iraq."

Neither Bush nor the State Department would elaborate on the meaning of "consequences." However, McClatchy Newspapers reports that "the president's top aides have been engaged in an intensive internal debate over how to respond to Iran's support for Shiite Muslim groups in Iraq and its nuclear program. Vice President Dick Cheney several weeks ago proposed launching airstrikes at suspected training camps in Iraq run by the Quds force, a special unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, according to two U.S. officials who are involved in Iran policy."

The Guardianreported in July that Cheney has been continuing to press for military action against Iran. When Larry King asked Cheney in an interview on July 31, ""Would you make an overt move on Iran?" Cheney said with a grin, "For what reason?" He then added, "I'm not going to speculate about prospective operations."

Media campaign against Iran accelerates

The degree of responsibility than can be placed on Iran and the Shiite groups it supports for current attacks in Iraq is not clear. Until recently the US tended to blame most Iraqi violence on Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda. However, what McClatchy describes as a "growing drumbeat of allegations about Iranian meddling in Iraq" appearing in US media is beginning to remind observers of the media campaign in 2002 that led up to the invasion of Iraq.

For example, in Wednesday's New York Times, Michael Gordon reported that "attacks on American-led forces using a lethal type of roadside bomb said to be supplied by Iran reached a new high in July, according to the American military. ... Such bombs, which fire a semi-molten copper slug that can penetrate the armor on a Humvee and are among the deadliest weapons used against American forces, are used almost exclusively by Shiite militants. American intelligence officials have presented evidence that the weapons come from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, although Tehran has repeatedly denied providing lethal assistance to Iraqi groups."

The bombs Gordon described are the "EFPs, highly sophisticated IEDs" that Bush referred to at his press conference the next day.

According to Editor & Publisher, Bush's statement "was reminiscent of the day in September 2002 when Cheney and other officials went on Sunday talk shows and touted the now-infamous Gordon-Judith Miller front-pager in the Times on the 'aluminum tubes' in Iraq and the possible 'mushroom cloud' on the horizon. The Times, and Gordon specifically, have been giving the unproven Iranian IED charges far more prominent play than any other major news outlet."

Since last February, Gordon has written a series of articles promoting the administration charges against Iran, claims that, as blogger Glenn Greenwald points out, "amount to an accusation that the Iranian Government, at its highest levels, is directing fatal attacks on American troops in Iraq, which constitutes, of course, an act of war."

RAW STORYreported in February that Gordon's article appeared to violate the Times' own policy against using unidentified sources. Gordon's July 2 article was sourced solely to statements by Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner, formerly a special assistant to the president, who had left the White House to become the spokesman for the US military in Iraq only three weeks previously.

The Iron Curtain of Belgium?

A conversation I recently had somehow turned to Belgium.

The basic subject of the conversation was how Homeland Security is changing nations all over the world.

I was told that anyone driving anywhere from home, or even back to there home, has to keep a parking log on their windshield, with the addressed and dates of where they park and where they leave. They have to account 100% of their time of where they are with a car. If the log is not kept the driver of the car is subject to arrest.

Belgium might just be a stalker's paradise for stalkers with and without badges.

Text:To whom it may concern at the Belgium Embassy:Is it true those driving cars in Belgium have to keep logs of where they park and for how long or they are subject to arrest as part of Belgium's Homeland Security Program.

Do you think this might make citizens in other countries think that Belgium is a repressive regime?

My email is: stevengerickson@yahoo.com and I am posting this open letter to you at: